Drabble: Telling Lies

[bk_forever]

Title: Telling Lies

Author: badly_knitted

Characters: Gwen, mentions Rhys and Owen

Rating: G

Written For: Challenge 300 at tw100

Spoilers: Countrycide, They Keep Killing Suzie, Combat.

Summary: Gwen berates herself over her affair with Owen.

Disclaimer: I don’t own Torchwood, or the characters.

A/N: A second fill for the square Curtain/Deception

Standing at the bedroom window, Gwen stared between the curtains at the deserted streets, hating herself.

She’d lied to Rhys. Again. Told him she was working, when in reality she was here, with Owen.

What was she turning into? She kept telling her colleagues how much she loved Rhys, hated having to deceive him about the true nature of her job, but now she was doing something far worse; betraying his trust.

As much as she hated it, lying about her job was a necessary evil. But this was wrong. She knew she should stop.

She just didn’t want to.

The End

Comments

[timelordshines.livejournal.com]

Yes, you really should stop, Gwen!

Great use of the prompt.

[bk_forever]

Thank you =)

She knows she should, but it's like breaking any bad habit, you need to have the willpower to quit and at this point she doesn't. Poor oblivious Rhys.

[owensheart.livejournal.com]

Gwen needs to think about her where hear heart truely lies.

Great drabble.

[bk_forever]

She does, but as much as she hates herself for what she's doing, she doesn't want to give up the thrill of the affair. She wants to have it all, but that's not possible, someone always winds up getting hurt.

Thank you.

[aviv-b.livejournal.com]

Very nice use of the prompt. She's only kidding herself here.

[bk_forever]

Yeah, she is. She doesn't have the willpower to break off with Owen, not when she's enjoying herself.

Poor innocent Rhys.

[red-day-dawning.livejournal.com]

Poor bloody Rhys. Gwen's treatment of him is appalling. And then the way she fawns on Jack! Wish Rhys could have seen through her before they married.

[bk_forever]

Me too, he just seems to be blind to her faults. We get told essentially that Gwen is the perfect woman, but to me she embodies all the qualities I despise, I just don't see anything likeable. She pushy, nosy, demanding, shallow, condescending, patronising, sanctimonious, arrogant, selfish and a hypocrite, to name but a few. Every timr she opens her mouth it's all "I want" or "I need" or complaining about how hard it is to be her, yet she leads a charmed life where everything goes her way and she never gets blamed for all the times she screws up and gets people hurt or killed. Rhys deserved better *sigh* Sorry for the rant =P

Thank you.

[teaboyfan.livejournal.com]

I'm inclined to agree with your assessment of Gwen, no matter what RTD was trying to get across. She wasn't malicious, but she was shallow and selfish and demanding, which are not pleasant characteristics. And Jack annoyed me catering to her as he did.

[bk_forever]

I really couldn't understand why Jack saw her as Torchwood's humanity, the one to remind the rest of the team of what it meant to be human, since she seemed to be the embodiment of some of the worst human qualities. It was as if Jack wasn't actually seeing Gwen, but someone she reminded him of, someone who really was everything he seemed to think Gwen was, if that makes sense. She seemed more a liability to the team than a help, she apparently didn't even know how to hold a knife safely and quite frankly, that made her look stupid. Any policewoman would knowe you don't hold a knife with the blade sticking out. It meant I couldn't believe in her as an ex-police constable. If she'd been some sort of journalist, she would have been a more believable character, someone who doesn't know about chain of command and the importance of following orders, or about weapon safety.

[tardisjournal.livejournal.com]

Love the use of the prompt! And you've captured Gwen's perspective in a nutshell. If anything, you made her more sympathetic than the show did. I can certainly relate to struggling to stop doing something you know you shouldn't be doing. What I couldn't relate to was her whining to Owen about how no one understood what they go through--as if that was justification enough for sleeping with him!

[bk_forever]

Yeah, but then Gwen's always so self-involved, she comes up with all these justifications to keep doing things she knows she shouldn't. I don't believe any of them are true, they're just convenient excuss to do what she wants to do, a way of salving her own conscience.

This was hard to write because Gwen is doing something I could never do, betraying someone she claims to love. I can't understand how (or why) she would sleep with Owen - who she claims not to even like - if she truly loves Rhys, it doesn't make sense to me. Trying to put myself in her shoes was an uncomfortable experience, especially knowing that she wasn't going to stop sleeping with Owen despite being fully aware that it's wrong and feeling guilty about it. Come morning she'll probably be back to justifying her actions by telling herself she's sparing Rhys from having to deal with what her job does to her.

I'm kinda cynical about Gwen, aren't I.

Thank you,.

[tardisjournal.livejournal.com]

Nah, I don't think you're being cynical, as that's exactly what she does--claim to love Rhys and then sleep with Owen at the first opportunity. And then keeps on doing it. It just doesn't jibe with her supposed role as "the heart of Torchwood" and a "carer". If they'd set her up to be an uncaring cad (sort of like a female Owen) running around while she had a perfectly nice guy at home, that'd be one thing. (I could totally see Suzie doing this, for example.) But that's not how it's presented and I think that's why it rubs a lot of people the wrong way.

Yeah, alright, maybe I'm a little cynical too. :-p

[bk_forever]

*giggles* Maybe that's Gwen's problem, she makes people cynical, lol!

Yeah, that would have been more believable than the 'I'm so caring and perfect' Gwen that we're supposed to see. Then again, I think if she'd been a journalist rather than a police constable I would have found her more believable too. Then it would make sense that she'd pry into things that are none of her business and keep investigating even after being told to stop. It would be understandable that she thought she could ignore orders instead of following the chain of command. It would even make her idiocy in Ghost Machine with the knife and in Day One with the chisel more tolerable instead of making her look clueless and incompetent from the start. I never could believe in Gwen as a police officer.

[too-beauty.livejournal.com]

well she wanted the loyalty and the fun!!!!

[bk_forever]

And she thinks she can have both, but she's just fooling herself.

Thank you.

[black59.livejournal.com]

this makes 2 drabbles a little sad ...
one needs but not too
;-)

[bk_forever]

Sorry, that's just the direction the prompt took me... ;)

Thank you.